?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFrustrated with myself for being so unproductive, I began to ask some really dark questions: Am I faking it? Is my discomfort\/lack of energy all in my head?<\/em> I decided to trust myself and go with No it isn\u2019t all in my head: I am recuperating; my energy is intermittent; I need more time to heal<\/em>. But there ARE some things I can do to work with my current situation:<\/strong><\/p>\n\u2014work in the morning<\/strong>. Waiting until the night left me feeling both lonely and tired, whereas if I woke up early I could\u00a0get a bit done when\u00a0I had a good amount of energy and focus\u00a0and could power through. On especially good days, I was able to do some creative work that gave me great joy. I painted in five or ten minute intervals, taking breaks often and stretching a couple hours work over the course of a day (at bottom).<\/p>\n\u2014create small doable routines that relieve the feeling of out-of-control chaos and give the day some consistency<\/strong>. \u00a0These include……upping my skin care regimen at night; it forced me to look into a mirror (something I had been avoiding due to subtle shame in seeing my sunken eyes and gained weight) while caring for myself ……reading a poem or two before bed from the same book……listening to the same album in the mornings and evenings…taking a timed nap at the same time every day…caring for small plants<\/p>\nGreg Keras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u2014reward myself with social interaction:\u00a0<\/strong>get this done, call a friend, get that done, send a friendly email. Reaching out made me available to the people who care about me, and occasionally talking a friend through a problem \u2014no matter how small \u2014gave me confidence.<\/p>\n\u2014write a list of what was accomplished at the end of the day<\/strong>. And especially, BE KIND. There are days that getting a few dishes washed can really suck energy from me, so if I accomplish that I put it on the list. Looking at the list helps me not go to bed every night feeling the day wasted.<\/p>\nThese are my solutions to\u00a0an unexpected setback, which we all face at some point.\u00a0\u00a0Find what works for you.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nGreg Keras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u2014Mira Keras<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week I was supposed to write some articles for Improvised Life and couldn\u2019t do it. I am a few weeks post-op from a serious surgery. Healing at am unexpectedly\u00a0glacial place is wearing away at my normally very high optimism, physical energy and focus.\u00a0I\u2019ve talked openly on Improvised Life before about \u201cbeing myself in a…<\/p>\nRead More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":56496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[458,61,31,6549,89,5418,1860],"tags":[9745,5752,5573,8802,342,5900,8565,9743,9744,9746,8587],"yoast_head":"\nWhat You Can Do When You Are Too Challenged To Do Anything - Improvised Life<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n